Ohio's Plan to Stop Student Debt Won't Work — But It's the Start Of Something

Ohio State Reps. Robert F. Hagan (D-Youngstown) and Mike Foley (D-Cleveland) have proposed legislation similar to the “Pay It Forward” Oregon tuition plan that would allow students to attend state university without loans and delay tuition payment until after graduation. The specific details of the Oregon plan have not yet been delineated and its skeletal structure will be filled in over the course of its two-year pilot study. In order to increase the likelihood of establishing a successful debt-alleviation program, Ohio should not replicate the structure of Oregon's tuition plan. Instead, it should build upon Oregon's initial draft by putting its best students to work on developing a viable implementation strategy.

The relevant and real-world applications of King and Dudley's course encouraged its participants to make tangible connections between classwork and the outside world. A core group of students in the class lobbied with members of the Oregon Jubilee and the Oregon Working Families Party to have the "Pay It Forward" plan considered by the Oregon state legislature, and what is most impressive is that the Oregon state legislature agreed to launch a pilot program and viability study.

If state legislatures simply jump on board with the Oregon plan without any rigorous debate or creative and thoughtful revision, this plan is sure to fail. There is so much discussion about the relevance of college and the purpose of higher education, it seems that the time has come for all universities, but particularly public universities and colleges in Ohio, to harness the power of project-based learning and push their state legislatures in the right direction. The college seminar structure, which fosters intellectual discourse and discussions of divergent opinions, is the ideal place to begin to work out the details of a plan to save public education. If one seminar classroom could draft a yet-to-be-funded skeletal plan that is being seriously considered by two states, what would happen if every college classroom took up the same task?